Ovid
Also known as: Publius Ovidius Naso · P. Ovidius Naso
- 1Ovid was a younger contemporary of the poets Virgil and Horace.
- 2He is recognized by the scholar Quintilian as the final major Latin love elegist.
- 3The emperor Augustus ordered his exile to the province of Moesia.
- 4He spent the last 9 or 10 years of his life living in the city of Tomis.
- 5The poet attributed his downfall to a vague carmen et error.
Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus.
Connections1
primary literary source for the myth
The Roman poet Ovid provided one of the most influential and detailed accounts of the Orpheus and Eurydice story in his work Metamorphoses.
Publius Ovidius Naso, widely known as Ovid, was a prominent Roman poet who flourished during the reign of Augustus. Alongside Virgil and Horace, he is regarded as one of the three pillars of Latin literature, particularly noted for his mastery of love elegy.
A statue of Ovid by Ettore Ferrari is shown in the Piazza XX Settembre in Sulmona, Italy. It is a duplicate of an 1887 original found in Constanța, Romania.Wikimedia Commons: File:Sulmona0001.jpgOvid Banished from Rome (1838), by J.M.W. TurnerWikimedia Commons: File:Turner_Ovid_Banished_from_Rome.jpgA statue of Roman poet Ovid in Constanța is shown. In 1925, an identical replica was made in Sulmona, Italy.Wikimedia Commons: File:Statue_of_Roman_poet_Ovid_in_Constanţa,_Romania.jpgMedea in a fresco from HerculaneumWikimedia CommonsEngraved frontispiece of George Sandys 's 1632 London edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses EnglishedWikimedia CommonsA 1484 figure from Ovide Moralisé, edition by Colard MansionWikimedia CommonsDelacroix, Ovid among the Scythians, 1859; National Gallery in LondonWikimedia CommonsOvid as imagined in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493Wikimedia Commons Despite his immense popularity, Ovid's career was abruptly altered when he was exiled to Tomis on the Black Sea. He spent the final decade of his life in this remote province, citing a mysterious carmen et error—a poem and a mistake—as the cause of his banishment. This enigmatic explanation has remained a subject of intense scholarly debate for centuries.